Borneo is home to a wide range of natural products with various functions. While many of them are commonly used by local communities, these products may have potential in medium or high-end markets. Across the world agricultural and forestry products are marketed with names of regions or places for authenticity and exotics like “Thai rice”, “Gouda cheese”, and “Swiss chocolate”, or with special labels like “organic” and “natural”. The word “Borneo” itself also represents exotic and mysterious flavours to many foreigners. How to leverage this advantage to create new income sources and conserve nature would be a potential strategy for developing a sustainable eco-economy. In the past, the indigenous people in the hinterlands exchanged their forest products with extra-local traders through riverine hubs, such as trade-hub longhouses once found in Sarawak (Sakuma 2017).

The smallholder-centric approach is different from the large-scale certifications described in Chapter 6 which mainly focused on highly industrialized cash crops, as it seeks to connect the buyers more directly with the efforts of small farmers to improve their livelihoods. In other words, “small” itself can be a key branding element. This is bound to the enhancement of economic opportunities for a heterogeneous group of small farmers, with the ultimate goal to alleviate persistent poverty. Effective branding provides opportunities for not only upgrading the value chain but also improving the land-use practices of farmers, as securing livelihoods is a precondition for environmental conservation (Suwarno, van Noordwijk, et al. 2018).

Globally, products characterized by small-scale production systems have been receiving extra attention in the past few decades. Especially, the market share of those certified for sustainability has been growing (Willer et al. 2019). The presence of market differentiation for such products offers opportunities for small farmers to capture a better share of the selling price. The numerous successful branding and marketing stories of smallholders around the world, such as tea, coffee, and cotton with various certifications have reflected the potential of such a strategy to be adopted in Borneo. This chapter provides a brief description of a range of local specialities and geographical indications, as well as several potential niche markets for the small farmers in Borneo. Some thoughts on ways forward are also elaborated.